Dear All, This Wednesday (4pm) we have a seminar led by Patrick Allsop (Bangor University) about his PhD project entitled "Anthropogenic disturbance is associated with greater dietary diversity and differentiation of the gut microbial community in the Zanzibar red colobus monkey (Piliocolobus kirkii)" - abstract below. The meeting will be held online (link below) but some of us will watch it from the common room. Abstract: Habitat loss is the primary threat to primates today, with many populations being encroached upon by human settlements and agriculture. Despite this, some generalist species can exploit novel anthropogenic opportunities to supplement their diet via crop foraging when preferred foods are scarce. This can potentially come with significant health risks however, including zoonoses and changes in the composition of the gut microbiome potentially increasing individuals’ susceptibility to pathogens. The Zanzibar red colobus monkey (Piliocolobus kirkii) is unusual in that congeners are highly sensitive to anthropogenic disturbance, yet in some cases populations of P. kirkii can survive in highly disturbed habitats. We studied eight groups of Zanzibar red colobus living in the forests (n=3 groups) and farmlands (n=4 groups) of Jozani-Chwaka Bay National Park and the urban village of Paje (1 group), to examine the effect of habitat disturbance on dietary composition and their gut microbiome. These were characterised by DNA metabarcoding, using 16S and ITS2 primers to sequence plant and bacterial DNA sequences found in faecal samples (n=137). We predicted that dietary diversity would be lowest in the urbanised village due to deforestation and highest in the farmland due to a greater variety of crops to supplement their diet in the absence of their preferred forest food species. We also predicted that the diversity and composition of the gut microbiome would vary across habitats in association with dietary composition. We found that farmland individuals had significantly higher dietary diversity than either forest or village individuals and that forest monkeys had a significantly less diverse gut microbiome than those in the urbanised village. Both dietary and microbiome composition showed significant variation between habitats. This demonstrates that although P. kirkii is capable of exploiting anthropogenic resources and landscapes, this may come at the cost of a disrupted gut microbiome. ink to the meeting: BERG research seminars | Meeting-Join | Microsoft Teams<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fteams.microsoft.com%2Fmeet%2F3816460052135%3Fp%3DxsEIefROgXSXlZHxc0&data=05%7C02%7Cpawel.fedurek%40stir.ac.uk%7C89d6dff9ac3d4ec9611608de72b4e81a%7C4e8d09f7cc794ccb9149a4238dd17422%7C0%7C0%7C639074318498962879%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=1EC%2BUxYdRdd%2FmH%2BpbWh66hLGUrq0Iju3KWs7toJcVMI%3D&reserved=0<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fteams.microsoft.com%2Fmeet%2F3816460052135%3Fp%3DxsEIefROgXSXlZHxc0&data=05%7C02%7Cpawel.fedurek%40stir.ac.uk%7C89d6dff9ac3d4ec9611608de72b4e81a%7C4e8d09f7cc794ccb9149a4238dd17422%7C0%7C0%7C639074318499006246%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=RH7lBbef1%2Famd1mzrmuP12XR2C%2B%2Bh1sIVEjvEc%2BP1Bo%3D&reserved=0<https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/3816460052135?p=xsEIefROgXSXlZHxc0>>> ________________________________ Scotland’s University for Sporting Excellence The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159